


swim through the fires

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Long Way Around [40]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst and Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Fix-It, Historical Inaccuracy, Implied/Referenced Torture, Operation Condor, Rescue Missions, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:21:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29599599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Woody Allen once said, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." With that in mind, Darcy had to wonder if there was anyone who could make God laugh quite like Steve Rogers.August 1979: Salvage Mission - 2nd Attempt
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: The Long Way Around [40]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1402126
Comments: 169
Kudos: 200





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome back to The Long Way Around! If for whatever reason you're jumping in at episode 40 of this series, may I recommend you go back and start at the beginning. We'll still be here when you get back. 
> 
> For everyone else, note the time jump that I promised at the end of the last fic. This one finds us two and a half years after Miss Samantha made her appeareance and in the midst of the ongoing attrocities of Operation Condor in South America.
> 
> If you'd like to learn more about Operation Condor, there are plenty of online resources. But fair warning, it will absolutely obliterate any lingering notion you might have had about the United States being one of the good guys. 
> 
> Also, I've done some research, but to say that this is a to-the-letter historically accurate depiction of anything...well...I'm afraid you're going to have a bad time.
> 
> But if all that didn't scare you off, then let's do this kittens.

“Mommy, I do it,” Samantha extended her hand as Darcy finished putting a dollop of toothpaste on the little chubby blue toothbrush with white stars.

She blinked. “You do it?” she repeated with a smile.

Samantha nodded, her thick bangs falling into her eyes, reminding Darcy that she would need a haircut by next week or she wouldn’t be able to see. She pinched her fingers together like a little castanet. “I do it, Mommy.” She raised her eyes to her mother’s. “Pease?”

“Okay, big girl,” Darcy agreed with a nod and handed over the toothbrush. “You do it.”

To say Samantha Jane Grant was a fiercely independent toddler was almost an understatement. At two and a half, _Mommy, I do it_ , was one of her favorite phrases. Not as frequently used as _No_ and her all-time favorite _Don’t wike that._ But it was close.

Darcy watched, fighting a grin, as Sam turned to her reflection and smiled wide, pressing the toothbrush to her baby teeth. “You’ve gotta scrub, baby,” Darcy reminded gently, bringing her hand up to put more pressure on her daughter’s. “That’s it,” she smiled as Sam seemed to get the hang of it.

It was another few seconds of brushing before she met Darcy’s gaze in the mirror, her mouth full of bubble-gum scented froth. “Now spit?”

Darcy giggled as she nodded. “Now spit.”

That was more of a mess than either of them anticipated and by the time the toothpaste had been wiped from the mirror, the sink, and Samantha herself, Darcy was glad she’d waited an extra day to do laundry.

Jammies were pulled on and hair was braided, and Darcy thought she just might make it through a whole day without a question she couldn’t answer. _The_ question she couldn’t answer. But as she turned on Sam’s night light and reached for the switch on the bedside lamp, she felt a little hand grab hers. “Mommy, where’s Daddy?”

Darcy stopped, her one hand still hidden under the polka-dot printed lampshade while she steeled herself and pursed her lips. She kept the light on another minute as she turned back to Samantha. “We talked about this, baby,” she said softly, as the little girl cuddled herself around her hip. Darcy ran her nails over her back. “Daddy has a friend who needs his help—”

“Wike Desmond?” Samantha interrupted, speaking of her favorite companion at daycare.

Darcy smiled again briefly. “Is Desmond your best friend, Sam?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“And if Desmond was in trouble,” she asked, choosing her words carefully. “If he was hurt, you’d want to help him, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Sam answered, her voice getting lower in her chest.

“Well Daddy’s best friend is hurt,” she said, hoping her own voice stayed even. That she said the same thing she’d said a hundred times already. “And he needs Daddy’s help.”

“But he’s gone so many sleeps.”

Darcy closed her eyes and took in a deep breath through her nose. “Well…it’s taking a little longer than he thought it would,” she said, forcing down the lump that had risen in her throat.

Sam untucked herself and raised her head, her eyes squinting already against the light, studying Darcy’s face. “Do you have a sad, Mommy?”

She swallowed hard and blinked, forcing a smile. “No, I’m just sleepy, baby,” she lied and extracted herself from Samantha’s drowsy grip. “So, let’s both close our eyes and dream something good,” she bent down and pressed her lips to her daughter’s temple. “Okay?”

“Love you,” Sam said as she pulled her pillow in tight for a hug.

“I love you too,” she whispered against her hair. “And Daddy loves you too, okay?” Her voice caught as she gave her another kiss. “Your daddy loves you more than anything in the whole world, Samantha.”

She watched as the words put a sleepy smile on Sam’s face as she closed her eyes. Her long, dark eyelashes fanned out over the tops of her rosy cheeks as she cuddled her pillow and the nearest stuffed animal tightly. Scrabble jumped up onto the small bed and curled up in his usual spot, right at Sam’s feet like her familiar.

With the main light shut off, Darcy gave the cat a scratch behind the ears before she slipped quietly from Samantha’s bedroom and stopped in the hallway. It was only seven-thirty. She shouldn’t be so tired. She started to move through the house, extinguishing lights and locking and double-checking all the doors and windows anyway.

She shouldn’t be so tired at seven-thirty.

But she wasn’t tired. She was exhausted.

Exhausted because she’d been working longer hours to cover Tangie’s time off and make sure she still had a job when she came back from her unpaid maternity leave. Exhausted because she’d been doing everything for Samantha all day, every day, for the last six weeks and by the end of each impossibly long day was just a string of endlessly long nights where she barely slept.

She made it to her bedroom and tossed her own toothpaste splattered clothes into the laundry, deciding they could have pizza tomorrow night so she could wash and dry the clothes in the time it usually took her to make dinner.

Her sheets were cool when she slipped between them, staying firmly on her own side of the bed. Steve’s side still made up like it had been since the morning he left. When he’d held her face in his hands and kissed her eyes and her cheeks and her lips a dozen times, promising that he would be safe. That he would be careful.

That he would only be gone for two weeks at the most.

Darcy settled back into her pillows and stared up at the ceiling that he’d promised to paint this summer and never got around to. She twirled her engagement ring around her finger with her thumb until it started to itch, the skin between her ring and pinky fingers starting to go numb.

She switched to the ring she wore on her right hand. The beautiful garnet Steve had given her for her first Mother’s Day. The little note on the ring box claiming it was from Sam. She smiled faintly at that memory; how he’d placed the wrapped gift in Samantha’s chubby hand and she’d immediately stuck the corner into her mouth, covering the paper and ribbon with a healthy layer of drool before Darcy could gently take it back to open it.

The smile faded even as she tried to hold onto it. She didn’t want to think about how different that Mother’s Day had been from the most recent. By May, Steve had told her what he was going to do. He’d started running longer every night after work. Started spending longer hours at the gym, coming home with knuckles he’d punched raw against the bags. Meticulously studying maps of Argentina. Brushing up on his Spanish. Spending a few hours each Saturday at the gun range.

He needed to be better prepared than he’d been last time, he’d said when she asked if he might be pushing himself too hard. Last time, Bucky had almost killed him before he could get through to him.

She hadn’t mentioned that last time, Bucky had only been in Los Angeles. Last time, he’d been given a very narrow window of time and no handlers. Last time, she hadn’t mentioned even though she’d desperately wanted to, was _six_ years ago. Steve had no way of knowing what had changed about the way the KGB and Hydra handled their asset these days.

But she hadn’t mentioned any of that. She’d helped him with what preparations she could. Helped him pack the night before his flight. Let him kiss her and the baby goodbye and believed him when he said he’d be back in two weeks.

And he had lied.

By the time Darcy lay in bed that night in the middle of August, twirling her rings around her raw fingers and counting spots where the paint had chipped from the ceiling, nearly six weeks had passed.

She hadn’t heard from Steve in well over a month, not since the postcard he’d sent them when he first arrived. She was running out of lies to tell their friends. Running out of explanations a two-year-old would understand.

And she had no idea if he was ever coming home.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve gets hit in the head. A lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have to present this chapter with an apology to anyone who is better-versed in history, especially that of the US foreign policy in South America. And also to anyone who is a native Spanish speaker. I am trying and studying daily, but I know my syntax sucks and I have to cross-check my initial attempts with Google translate so. Um. They're probably not great.
> 
> ALSO! Some history for you before we begin:
> 
> US President 1979: Jimmy Carter  
> Secretary of Defense- Carter administration: Harold Brown  
> Former Secretary of State and bestest buddy to some of the most reprehensible people in history: Henry Kissinger  
> Head of the CIA 1979: Stansfield Turner 
> 
> Oh, and if there are some Lost fans reading this, you'll recognize some sources of inspiration.

_Day 9_

Steve didn’t know how long he had been gone. He’d been keeping track before, of course, when he’d been on mission, when he’d been posing as a world cultures teacher on a summer research trip. When he’d been pretending to take photos of the landscape and the town and asking well-rehearsed questions that sounded harmless, he’d known exactly how long he’d been away from his family. How long he had left until he started breaking promises.

Two weeks had felt like a safe estimate. A fair amount of time to expect Darcy to be okay with him being gone. A few days to get there, a week or so to find Bucky if he was where the mission reports Steve had memorized said he would be, and then a few extra days to get them both back to California.

It was optimistic, but he’d had worse odds.

But in the middle of his ninth night in Buenos Aires, Steve had awoken to a blinding bright flashlight shined directly into his eyes, a single question, and a blow to his solar plexus like a battering ram before a bag was tossed over his head.

_Day 16_

_¿Crees que no lo notaríamos?_

It felt like it had been a long time since the first time he heard that question, but he couldn’t be sure. His cell had only one narrow window near the ceiling and he wasn’t always conscious when the days or nights slipped into one another.

_Did you think we wouldn’t notice?_

That was what they’d asked him before they’d taken him prisoner. They asked him that every day when they dragged him out of his little cell and hoisted his shackled wrists above his head. The beam where they secured his handcuffs each time they felt like interrogating him was just high enough that his feet only barely touched the ground. It made it easy for them to beat him when he was stretched out like this. His feet couldn’t quite get enough grab to push off from the ground. His arms were too extended to be able to rip the chains down from the wall.

They spoke to each other in a mix of Russian and Spanish, just enough of a mix that Steve that had a little more trouble deciphering what they were saying.

A fist slammed into his temple, rattling his brain. Blurring his vision.

“What is your mission?”

They spoke English too, but only after they’d hit him a few times to get warmed up. Mostly they asked the same questions over and over.

Steve shook his aching head and tried to shift his arms in a way that the metal of the cuffs didn’t cut quite so harshly into his skin. “No mission,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time. “You have the wrong guy.”

Another sound punch, this time to his stomach. He felt the breath knocked out of his lungs, half by the shock, half by the force. “What. Is. Your. Mission?”

“I don’t have a mission,” he said with some difficulty around a forced exhale. “I’m a high school teacher for fuck’s sake—”

The third blow was directly to his face. His lip split and his mouth filled with blood that he had to spit out at the feet of his captors.

_Day 21_

This was bad.

He’d been in some bad spots before—too many to count, really—but this was…

This was really bad.

He blamed the mix of language, the starvation rations they gave him once a day, and the relentless coldcocking for the fact that it had taken him more than a few days to realize they thought he was part of some resistance effort. There to throw a wrench into their activities, do something that would either restore Peron to the presidency or at least depose Videla so someone new could take over.

If there was any good in this situation, it was that he’d been captured by the same group Bucky was meant to be working with. The military junta that had taken over in ’76 was training a new secret police force. Inspired by the effectiveness of the previous administration’s Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, Videla had asked for a similar death squad to be assembled. The mission reports said that he’d asked for the Winter Soldier specifically. If the reports were to be believed, then Bucky was supposed to have been in Buenos Aires from June until September of ’79. Steve had heard names and places, key players he recognized, that kept him hopeful he might still have a chance of achieving what he’d set out to do, but so far there hadn’t been a trace of the man he’d come to retrieve.

Not a glimpse. Not a whisper. Not a mention.

_Day 30_

The torture continued.

It didn’t matter what he said in response to their questions, they didn’t believe him. Days and nights passed, but he didn’t know how many. They kept beating him. Kept starving him. Kept holding his head underwater on days after they decided they’d hit him too hard. He kept healing. He’d reset his own nose twice already. It frustrated them, but they kept at it.

Steve couldn’t figure out why. He watched them from his little holding cell, listened to how they spoke to each other once his ear had tuned to their blended dialect. They didn’t know what to do with him. They didn’t want him there, they didn’t trust him, but they hadn’t decided to kill him yet and he didn’t know what they were waiting for.

He had read enough about this particular party’s preferred method of dealing with anyone they considered a problem. Every time his cell opened, he half-expected they were going to throw another bag over his head and execute him.

He was saving his strength for the day that happened.

He was scared and angry and he didn’t have a plan, but he knew he wasn’t dying there. He wasn’t going to let Darcy and Samantha wonder forever what happened to him, wonder why he left them, wonder if he was ever coming back. He could let these men think he was too beaten down to fight anymore; if he appeared weaker, they would let their guard down, and then he’d kill as many of them as he needed to get out of this place.

_Day 33_

He didn’t pray—it felt disingenuous to only ask for help when he needed something—but every night he was conscious, he stared at the little sliver of the world he could still see from his cell and he thought about home. His little yellow house. The mismatched flowerbeds out front. The swing he’d hung up for Sam from the tree in the back. The way everything inside his head and his heart breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped through the door.

He thought about the sound of his little girl’s giggles when he tickled her belly; the way she’d hold her arms up and say “ _Frow me, Daddy!”_ and squeal with glee as he tossed her in the air. He thought about the mess she made when he gave her a bath—splashing water all over the bathroom while she zoomed her toy boats around, having too much fun for him to be able to tell her to stop. The way Darcy was trying to teach her to talk about her feelings, so she said things like _“I have a big mad,”_ while she put her hands on her hips and scrunched up her face.

Steve pressed his back further up against the wall and placed his elbows on his knees. He dropped his head down and let a wave of homesickness wash over him. He knew it had to have been weeks that he’d been away. Weeks of Darcy checking out the window every time she heard a car out front. Weeks without a word more than the first postcard he’d sent. Weeks of wondering if he was ever coming back.

His vision blurred but the tears refused to fall as he let himself think about Darcy. About the way the sunlight danced along the curve of her cheek when she slept in on Sunday mornings while he got up with Sam. About the gap between her front teeth and the way her nose wrinkled when she laughed. The softness of her lips, her skin, her eyes when she looked at him. The way she leaned into his kisses, her soft sighs when he pressed his lips to her neck. How she could give him a look or hook her fingers with his in a crowded room and make him feel like they were the only two people in the world.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to his empty cell. “I’m sorry I left. I’ll come home,” he swore, his words barely audible even to himself. “I promise I’ll come home and I’ll—”

The sound of footsteps down the hall shut him up. Steve sucked in a breath and tucked himself further against the wall. But the two soldiers making their way down the corridor weren’t paying him any attention. Their voices carried along with the shuffling of their boots and the scratchy rattle of papers as they made their way past his cell.

_“¿Hablaste con el soldado?”_

_“Si.”_

_“¿Enserio?”_

_“Si. Ayer. Espantoso.”_

The two soldiers sounded young and the one who had spoken first snickered, unaware that a few feet away, Steve’s every nerve was standing on end.

 _“¿Dijo lo que quería con el maestro?”_ They stopped at the next door, the one right beside his cell. There was a jingle of keys and the sound of locks twisting.

And something else.

Steve froze.

_“No, pero yo—”_

The door opened and closed, and the silence was deafening but for the sudden pounding of Steve’s heart in his ears. He waited another minute. Two. Three. Counting each second until he was sure they were gone and not coming back before he crept from his cot and stared at the dirty concrete floor and what had fallen there and bounced three inches from his cell.

A paperclip.

_Day 35_

Eleven minutes. He only had eleven minutes between the shift change that happened between two and three in the middle of the night. Initially he had thought that would be enough time to figure out how to get out of the building. But the bunker they were holding him was a labyrinth with twisting hallways that all looked the same. He needed more time.

And more time was exactly what he told himself he was buying as he crouched in the cramped office just one hallway down from his cell. Despite his racing pulse, Steve’s hands stayed steady as he rifled through files and notes, debriefs and dossiers.

Anything that would give an indication of where he was. Of how close he was to getting out.

His eyes strayed to the wall clock again.

Nine minutes.

He kept shuffling and shifting until he finally unearthed something that felt promising. A heavy folder with one word scrawled on the tab.

_Arquitectura_

He breathed a silent exhale of relief and flipped it open expecting to find something about building he was in. Something that might give him an indication of what they did here. Something he could use to figure out the details of his way out.

His eyes scanned the first few pages and he felt his brow furrow in confusion. Inside were letters, directives on official stationary. Field orders and reports. Requests for contact and information. Carbon copies with blurred Spanish type, others in Russian. But it wasn’t the words he was focusing on. It wasn’t the words he recognized.

It was the forms themselves.

He’d seen forms like this before. His file at SHIELD had been full of them. Same formatting, same crisp structure of commands. His stomach dropped at the same time his mouth ran dry when specific directives began to jump out.

_Asset requested._

_Extended period out of stasis._

_Permission to redirect if necessary._

There were names that jumped out too. Signatures on pages mixed in with the Russian docs. Proof that he had always known had to exist. Pierce. Brown. Kissinger. Carter. Turner. All mixed in with the orders and requests to use Bucky like a weapon and stuff him back in the box when they were done with him. All proof that Hydra had infected every institution he’d ever had even a scrap of faith in, all the way up to the top.

_Permission to redirect if necessary._

That one stuck in his brain. He’d seen it before. It was commonplace with any request for the Winter Soldier. He hadn’t considered it anything worth remembering until he saw the way tension snaked up Natasha’s spine when she read it in Bucky’s old Hydra files.

“Redirect,” she had scoffed under her breath, shaking her head. “They just wanted to make sure they could kill him if he stepped out of line.” She hadn’t looked up when she’d added, “They used to put the same thing on all of my mission directives too.”

Steve’s hand curled into a fist while he stared at the pages, no longer thinking about an escape. No longer thinking about anything but who he could take these to. Who he could trust when he smuggled them out and who could blow this entire operation into the open where it belonged. Where the people responsible could be stopped and face real consequences. Where maybe a few tens of thousands of perceived political enemies might get to keep their heads over the next ten years.

He couldn’t take the file now, he knew. Not with how little time he had left to get back to his cell. He had to make sure he could come back for it before he left. He flipped through page after page, committing everything he could to memory before he finally tore himself away and stuffed it back into the desk where he’d found it.

Later, Steve would blame his racing thoughts, the white-hot fury that bubbled in the back of his throat any time he thought about what Bucky had been through, the constant headache he had from starvation and dehydration, for what happened next. For what happened when he managed to make it all the way down the hall toward his cell before he turned the corner and his forehead met the butt of a rifle.

He hit the ground hard. His world went black for a long moment before things started to swim back into focus. His ears were ringing from the blunt blow. When he finally could blink, he found himself staring into the face of one of his interrogators. A younger looking kid with acne-scarred skin and a destabilizing right cross. He spoke English like he’d learned it from watching nothing but action movies. He put his nose close to Steve’s with a smile tugging on his thin lips, breath smelling like menthol cigarettes. “You saved us a trip, _maestro_ ,” he said quietly while Steve struggled to breathe. To move. To make use of his hands before they were bound again. “We were just coming to get you. _El comandante_ finally wants to see you for himself.”

Before Steve could do anything, the boy raised his rifle again and brought it down hard.

_Day 36_

When his consciousness returned, Steve found himself shackled again. This time to a steel table bolted to the ground. A proper interrogation suite this time, he thought dryly. His head had been on the table and when he raised it with some difficulty, there was a small pool of blood. He couldn’t tell where it had come from. He’d done so much bleeding over the last few weeks it didn’t concern him that much anymore.

He looked around slowly. Another slim window near the ceiling, just enough that he could see the silverly purple of pre-dawn creeping over the building. Vaguely he wondered how long he’d been out. He wondered how many more knockouts he had left before he couldn’t shake them off anymore.

The door opened before he could follow that unpleasant train of thought much longer and the air was punched painfully from his lungs.

Bucky was tanner than he would have expected. His beard had grown out and his hair was longer but pulled back in a neat ponytail at the nape of his neck. He wore the same uniform as the other soldiers, but his was cleaner and he filled it out better. Carried himself with more confidence. Took up more space than someone else his own size. He was accompanied by the younger soldier whose rifle was responsible for the lump on Steve’s forehead. Bucky looked at Steve, sitting slack jawed and trying to get his brain to catch up to reality, and turned back to his chaperone. “ _Salí_.”

Steve expected an argument from the mouthy little shit, but there was none. Nothing more than a nod, a salute, and _“Si, Comandante,”_ before he ducked his head and practically scurried from the room. He watched as Bucky closed the door behind the soldier and crossed the table. He stood behind the other chair and stared at down at him. His eyes weren’t empty, but they were cold. No spark of recognition. No hint of familiarity. Steve’s heart sank. No trace of the Bucky he knew was buried in there somewhere. Bucky’s metal hand fell to the back of the chair. “English?” he asked gruffly. “ _español?”_ He ducked his head, waiting for Steve to look up. _“Russkiy?_ ”

“English is fine,” Steve answered, his voice hoarse and hollow. He’d been waiting weeks—no, _years—_ to see Bucky again. To hear his voice again and know that he was still alive. Still able to make at least some of his own decisions. That he wasn’t in a frozen tomb somewhere in the middle of nowhere. But after all his preparation, all his training, with Bucky standing only a few feet away from him now, he felt further away than ever. Despite that, a tired half-smile came to his lips. “Your turn to torture me, Buck?”

The opposite chair was pulled out and Bucky sat down without making a sound. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a photo. Steve’s attention snapped to it. The date stamped on the back. The little fold in the corner. He knew that photo. Bucky glanced down at it once and set it on the table between them. Steve fought the instant rush of emotion in his throat at the sight of Darcy, crouched beside Samantha at the dining room table on her second birthday, their faces glowing from the light of the birthday candles. Pink and white striped roses on the cake. Everything about that day lingered in his mind, heavy on his memory like a mouth full of sugar. Bucky’s right index finger pointed to Darcy’s face. “Who is this?” Steve tore his eyes away from the image and looked up at him, schooling his features to a blank expression. He saw the corner of Bucky’s jaw clench as he tapped her face again. “They took this out of your wallet,” he reminded. “Who is this? Your wife?” he moved to Samantha. “Your child?”

“I don’t know,” Steve forced his voice to something neutral. “It came with the wallet. I never got around to switching it out.”

Bucky didn’t skip a beat. “Who are you?”

Steve blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Tell me who you are and what you’re doing here,” Bucky demanded, never raising his voice above a smooth, unbothered command. Entirely in control of this interrogation.

Steve felt his brow furrow again. “You went through my wallet,” he reminded him, forcing his eyes to stay on Bucky’s. Not trusting himself not to lose his edge if he looked at Darcy and Sam again. “You must have found my ID.”

“It’s a fake,” Bucky stated coldly. “It’s all fake. Which means whatever you told my men these past few weeks has been a lie. The only thing that _isn’t_ fabricated about your identity,” he tapped the photo again, “is this.” His gaze never faltered. He didn’t even blink as he continued. “You’re going to tell me who you are and what you’re doing here, or I’m going to find them and kill them and make sure that you watch me do it. Do you understand?”

His words—the very real sincerity behind his threat—chilled Steve’s blood, but he made himself shake his head. “No.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched again. “No, you’re not going to tell me? Or no, you don’t—”

“I don’t understand,” Steve cut him off as the realization of what Bucky was asking, what he was unwittingly admitting, began a slow twist in his mind. “Who do you think I am?”

“You may think they’re safe at home,” Bucky went on as if Steve hadn’t spoken pushing the photo towards him again. “But I can find anyone. Anywhere. So unless you want them to die screaming, you’re going to answer my questions.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed. “You’re the one who gave the order to have your men pick me up, aren’t you?” No answer and without his permission, he felt one single flutter of hope. “You must have some idea of who I am.”

“I know you have lied in every interrogation,” he said calmly. “I know that your identification is fake and that you cannot be this history teacher that you claim to be—”

“World Cultures, actually,” Steve put in, unable to help himself. “And why not? Why can’t I be?”

Bucky’s eyes were cold blue steel as he stared back. “Because anyone else would be dead by now. But you keep healing.”

The room was quiet for a moment, thick heavy silence stacking up between them before Steve raised his eyebrows with a question. “Remind you of someone you know?”

The chair Bucky had been using flew across the room when he stood up and grabbed Steve by the shirt, hauling him to his feet and digging the metal of his handcuffs deeper into his wrists. His eyes flashed angrily. “Are you one of Zola’s?” he demanded, shaking his prisoner once before he went on. “Who sent you? Chebrikov? Kissinger?”

Steve’s head snapped back with another rough shake. “Nobody sent me, Buck,” he insisted, keeping his voice low. “You know that. I know that you know me.” Bucky’s grip tightened on Steve’s collar, pulling the fabric tighter around his neck. “That’s why you had your men detain me. You know you know me—”

“I don’t know you,” Bucky said in a tight whisper, grinding the words through his teeth. “And I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

“Yes you do,” Steve said, now hoping in earnest, clinging desperately to the possibility that this might be a crack in the veneer, a place to apply pressure and maybe get a glimpse of his Bucky again. “I’m here to help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” Bucky hissed before he released Steve’s shirt and he dropped down painfully back onto the chair.

But there was something different in his eyes now. The mask of the disinterested professional killer had slipped just slightly and beneath it flickered just one small glimmer of doubt. Steve took a deep breath as Bucky picked up the chair he’d shoved. “I can get you out of here. You can smuggle me out and we can go where they couldn’t find you.” When that received no reaction, he kept going. “You’re more than they’re trying to make you believe,” he said, staying quiet, making sure that no one eavesdropping could hear what he was saying. “You have a name. And a hometown. And people who love—”

A metal fist connected with his right eye faster than he could blink or wince. Bucky stood over him once again when his head snapped back into place, ears ringing. “Shut the fuck up,” he growled.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Steve assured him, staring up at him. “You’ve had weeks to kill me. You can’t.”

Without hesitation, Bucky reached for his gun and pressed the muzzle to Steve’s forehead. “You don’t think I’ll do it?”

His heart hammered in his ears. His palms were soaked with sweat. He wanted to close his eyes. To picture Darcy and Sam again. To send one more apology into the universe. But he kept them open—kept his gaze locked with Bucky’s. “I think if you were so sure you didn't know me, you would have done it already.”

The muzzle of the gun dug harder into his flesh and he felt the slightest tremble before Bucky raised his arm and cracked the weapon across Steve’s temple instead.

_Day 37_

He was in and out for the rest of the day and night. He remembered being dragged back down the hall to his cell. Remembered waking up to see that it was dark again. Remembered the rattle of new, more complicated irons on his ankles and wrists and a terrible throbbing in his head.

By the time the aching stopped, another day was beginning to dawn. He heard the footsteps of four men approaching and had barely managed to sit up when the door to his opened. “What’s on the agenda today, gentlemen?” he asked tiredly, dragging his feet over the edge of his thin, threadbare cot. “Rotten food or waterboarding?”

His answer came in the form of a canvas sack tossed at his feet. His blood ran cold and he looked up to see Bucky standing with two of the other soldiers. “Put it on,” he said firmly with a nod to the bag. “You’ve wasted enough of our time.”

With his ankles and wrists double-bound in heavy iron cuffs and chains, he could barely shuffle, let alone run. His hands were useless stuck in front of him and too close together to offer any slack he could use to his advantage. Steve blinked up at Bucky, ignoring the other soldiers who trained their rifles on him the moment he moved. “Why not just shoot me here?” he asked hoarsely.

“Less to clean up outside,” he answered without a drop of emotion. He nodded to the bag again. “Put it on.”

Steve’s heart wasn’t pounding. It had slowed to a dull, echoing _thud_ in his ears as he was hauled to his feet, now blind and nearly helpless, and shuffled from his cell. A soldier on each arm and one behind him while Bucky led the way down the long and twisting hallways and out into the cool, early morning air.

It was the first breath of fresh air he’d tasted in over a month and despite the smell of pollution and garbage and animals that hit him right away, there was still an underlying sweetness to it. A crispness he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel again.

They walked him further from the building than he expected, though he couldn’t be sure where they were or where they were going. It felt like they were being led somewhere new, somewhere unexpected by the moments of hesitation he felt from his escorts each time Bucky made a turn. Finally they stopped. “ _Aqui es bueno,”_ Bucky clipped and the man on Steve’s right kicked the back of his knees, dropping him down into the dirt.

Of all the ways Steve Rogers has thought he was going to die, he had not ever dreamed it would be like this. He had never dreamt he’d be full of so many regrets. Be missing so much and wishing so hard he could be home. All the times he’d thought of his own end, it had been when he’d been a soldier. That version of himself hadn’t dared to imagine he could ever have so much to leave behind.

His vision swam as he screwed his eyes shut and waited, every muscle tense. He thought of Darcy again. Of Samantha. Of how this would be the thing they’d never get over, him not coming back. And he thought of Bucky. How he had failed him again and in the process, he’d failed his family too.

He heard the click of the hammer and swallowed hard; sucking in a deep, last breath.

 _I’m so sorry, Darcy_.

When he looked back on what happened next, no part of it ever felt real. In one moment, he was on his knees, trying to sear the image of his wife and daughter into his mind so he could carry it with him into the next life. And in the next, the bag was being pulled from his head and Bucky was hauling him to his feet. In between there had been three gunshots that shocked every nerve in his body to stand on end and the dead bodies of three men falling around him.

“What’s going on?” he managed, staring in shock as Bucky reached into his pocket and retrieved a key. He began unlocking Steve’s handcuffs. Blood from the youngest of the three dead soliders was pooling close to his shoes. “What did you do—”

“Shut up,” Bucky hissed as the cuffs around Steve’s wrists came off. He dropped to a knee and freed his ankles next. “You have ten minutes to get out of here.” He stood up again and pulled a file from beneath his uniform’s jacket. “There’s a pickup leaving for the trainyards two blocks from here. Two left turns.” He pressed the file into Steve’s hands. “Get in the back, the driver knows better than to ask questions. Get on a train and don’t ever come back here.”

His heart was racing again, his breathing quick as his mind sprinted to catch up. “You’re coming with me,” he said firmly, grabbing hold of Bucky’s arm. “Please, Buck, please come with me.”

But Bucky shook his head and took his gun back from his hip holster. “I have to tell them you escaped. You waited until we uncuffed you, then you stole my gun, shot me and killed the three of them—”

“What?” he shook his head. “No, just come—”

“I can’t leave,” Bucky insisted, his eyes wide and panicked. “I don’t know who you are,” he repeated his words from the night before. There was no venom in them any longer, but the honesty there hurt even worse. “But if you came here to help me then don’t make this have been for nothing.”

“Buck—”

He held out his gun. “You do it or I will.”

Steve blinked. “I’m not going to—”

Before he could finish, Bucky had flipped the gun in his hand and pointed it at his own body, near his left shoulder, close enough to his heart that it could easily be seen as a missed attempt at a kill shot. He nodded to the folder in Steve’s shaking hand. “Do something with that,” he said and then motioned to the gun in his hand. “And you take this with you, or they won’t believe me. Understand?”

“Please don’t do this—”

A fourth gunshot and Bucky swayed in place, his teeth clenched in a grimace as he held out the gun again. Steve took it and reached for him, trying to catch him before he hit the ground. Bucky shoved him away. “If you’re not gone in five minutes when they do the next patrol,” he gasped, struggling to keep his eyes open as blood blossomed against his shirt “they’ll kill you and I won’t be able to stop them.”

Steve’s heart twisted high in his chest. “Buck, please—”

“Goddammit,” Bucky growled and managed to give him one, firm shove, “just _go._ ”

He didn’t want to go, but Bucky hadn’t given him a choice. His feet moved almost without his permission in a clumsy gait as he started away from the grisly scene. He watched just long enough to see Bucky slump to the ground before he forced himself to make the first of the two left turns. The pickup was idling at the end of the block after he made the second left. The back was full of tools and pieces of scrap metal and covered with a patchy tarp. It was easy enough to climb aboard with no one awake and filling the streets at the hour. No one to see him slip away.

No one to stop him.

No one to see the tears that finally slid down his cheeks when he opened the file Bucky had shoved into his hands and saw that, among the mission directives and letters and file debriefs he’d seen the night before, there was something else.

Bucky had given him back the photo of Darcy and Sam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be kind? I know it's not my best.


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the sweetness you bestowed upon me over the last few weeks. My cup runneth over, Darcyland.

_Saturday  
August 11_

The mayonnaise made a satisfying sizzle as Darcy flipped Samantha’s grilled cheese on the skillet. She popped her head out the back door to make sure her little girl was where she’d left her—buckled into her booster seat at their little picnic table. “Do you want me to cut it in squares or triangles, little miss?”

Sam looked up and squinted in the early afternoon sun. The light through the trees hitting her hair made it look almost golden. “Um,” her nose wrinkled. “The other one.”

Darcy grinned. “Triangles?” she repeated. Sam nodded. “And I’m going to give you some carrots and grapes too.”

She pouted her full lips. “Don’t wike those.”

“Yes you do,” she assured her. “You ate them last night.”

“Huh-uh,” Sam’s hair fell into her face when she shook her head.

Darcy sighed and returned to the kitchen where the grilled cheese had reached a perfect, golden brown on both sides. She turned off the stove and slid it into a plate before she cut it twice into nice, crisp triangles. After adding a handful of carrot sticks and sliced grapes, she picked up the plate and grabbed a juice box from the fridge before she headed back outside.

Samantha eyed the plate with suspicion. “No domatoes?” she asked as Darcy set it down in front of her.

She snorted and kissed the top of her head. “No domatoes,” she promised, pleased when Sam picked up a quarter of her sandwich and took a bite. “What do you say?” she asked, once she was sure the first bite had been chewed and swallowed.

Sam sipped her grape juice and smiled sweetly. “Fank you Mommy.”

Darcy kissed her again. “You are so welcome, big girl.”

She almost missed the sound of the front door opening—she heard it, but she had convinced herself she didn’t as she prompted Samantha to eat a grape. By the time she heard the sound of it closing again, she was up on her feet, her head cocked back toward the house. Sam looked up, concerned. “Where you going, Mommy?”

“Just need to check something inside, Smudge,” she said quietly and pointed to the plate. “Keep on eating.”

Her heart was pounding in her ears as she slipped back into the house, taking care not to the let the aluminum back door slam. She crept through the kitchen, telling herself she’d just been hearing things or maybe the wind had blown the door open and shut again and there was no one uninvited in her house. No one for her to threaten with the carving knife she’d grabbed from the block on the way past.

No one but—

The knife fell from her hand as a little cry escaped her lips. The heart that had been racing a moment before seemed to stop at the same time as the rest of the world the moment she turned the corner and saw her husband standing in the living room.

He looked terrible. Dark circles under his eyes, shaggy hair, clothes hanging off him like he’d been starving. He didn’t have the bag he’d left with. The only thing in his hands was a beat-up file folder he set on the table beside the door. He looked up as the knife clattered to the floor.

“Steve?” Darcy only managed to get his name out before she felt her chest rising and falling as she struggled to catch the breath that had been stuck in her throat a moment ago.

“Darcy.” Her name on his lips was little more than an exhausted exhale. He stayed where he was. “I know I—”

He didn’t get to finish before Darcy had managed to unglue her feet and crossed the living room to throw her arms around him. “You’re back,” she said into his shoulder, ignoring how filthy his clothes were. How skinny he felt when his arms folded around her. “You’re—” her hands were shaking as they ran over his back, his shoulders. Her vision blurred. “You’re back.”

“Yeah,” she heard him say softly before he dropped his chin and buried his face in her hair. She felt him inhale deeply, a little shudder in his lungs. “Yeah, I’m back.” They were quiet for what felt like a long time as she tried to slow her breathing down, stay grounded in this impossible moment with him, tell herself it was _real._ He was _home._ He was _right here._ Right beneath her hands. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “Darcy—” he pulled back, keeping his hands at her waist to look at her. “I’m _so_ sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

She rose up on her toes and pulled his face down to hers, silencing him a second time with a kiss. The moment their lips touched, she felt something crack inside her chest. A dam of the terror and the worry and the honest-to-god _longing_ she’d been fighting since the day he left broke open, and she felt like she might drown where she stood, clinging to him as their tears mingled on her cheeks. “It’s okay,” she breathed against his lips. “It’s—” she sniffled and shook her head with a wet laugh. “I mean, it’s not. It’s not okay. I’m _furious_ with you—”

He kissed her again. “I know,” he promised as his arms circled tight around her waist, dragging her even closer. “I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’m so mad at you,” she said, unwilling to let him go for more than a few words to pass between them. “I mean it—”

“I know you are,” he nodded, his eyes still closed. “I know. I’m so sorry. I wanted to come home, I swear.”

“Why didn’t you call me? Or send me a letter?” she demanded, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. “Anything. I was going out of my mind wondering if you were—”

“Mommy!”

They both froze and Darcy turned toward the kitchen and the back door.

“Mommy! I stuck!”

When she looked back, Steve had squeezed his eyes shut. Like he didn’t trust that if he opened them, he’d really be home. She put her anger aside and took his hand, pulling him along with her. “Come on,” she said gently. “I can yell at you later,” she pushed at the tears on her cheeks. “Come hold your kid. She missed you.”

***

Steve had stowed away on two trains and one shipment of bananas from Ecuador to make it back to the United States. He’d taken two showers at a YMCA when they docked in San Diego the night before he was able to stumble into the mercifully unlocked front door of his house and only made it north as quickly as he did because someone working there took pity on him and bought him a bus ticket back to Oakland.

He’d wanted to burn his clothes but he had nothing else to put on so he’d done the best he could to clean up his hair and his beard as much as possible before he finally made it home. He knew Darcy wouldn’t care, but he worried he’d been gone too long that his little girl wouldn’t recognize him. That she’d shy away from him like she did with other strangers. He told himself he was expecting it, but he knew it’d still break his heart.

His worry was unfounded. Samantha spent most of her day in his arms, hanging off his neck like a monkey, telling him every thought that passed through her head and making him wonder how she’d grown up so much in just six weeks.

By the time he gave her a bath and watched her climb beneath her covers, he’d lost count of how many things were different about her. He didn’t recognize the Scooby-Doo nightgown she’d pulled from her drawer. Vaguely he wondered if it was something from the bag of hand-me-downs from Linda’s girls or something Darcy had purchased her while he’d been away. He didn’t want to think about Darcy having to go shopping by herself, having to wrangle Sam on her own, wondering if he was ever coming back to help her or if this was just going to be what she had to do from now on.

She was kicking her feet under the blankets, wriggling back into her pillows and looking like she had far too much energy for bedtime. He sat on the edge of her bed, unable to help his smile watching her in the yellow light of her bedside lamp. “You, wiggle worm,” he grabbed hold of her sides and gave her a tickle as he picked her up and set her back down again, laughing when she squealed, “ought to be very sleepy by now.” She rolled onto her side to face him and shook her head. “No?” he repeated with a laugh. “Okay, what would help you be sleepy then?”

Her lips pouted and twisted in thought and she looked startlingly like Darcy. “A book?”

He smiled and nodded, though she’d already tossed her covers aside and climbed out of bed, heading for her bookcase. She trundled back into bed, depositing a copy of _Thidwick, the Big Hearted Moose_ into his lap. “Just one book,” he warned lightly, knowing it was an empty threat. If she wanted him to sit up with her all night, reading every printed page in the house, Steve knew he’d do it.

It was an empty threat, but an ultimately unnecessary one. By the time he reached the page where Thidwick’s antlers were too heavy for him to outrun the pack of hunters, Samantha’s blue eyes had started to droop. She was nearly asleep by the time he finished and set the book beside her bed. He pulled her covers up around her chin, smiling again when Scrabble jumped up to curl into her side. “Goodnight, Smudge,” he whispered, kissing the side of her head.

“Daddy?”

He’d turned out the light and nearly made it to the door when her voice stopped him, and he turned back. “Yeah?”

She pushed herself up on one arm and squinted at him in the dim glow of her nightlight. “You stay now?” Steve’s breath caught in his chest as she studied him, waiting for an answer. When he couldn’t force the words to his lips fast enough, she continued. “No more going away?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again. Shaking his head, he crossed back to her and sat on the edge of her bed. “No more going away,” he said firmly, making sure she was looking at him as he said it. She nodded, believing him, and dropped back down into her pillows. Steve bent and kissed her a second time. “I love you, Samantha.”

“I know,” she mumbled, her eyes already closed. “I wuv you too.”

He heard the sound of water running in the kitchen as he made his way back down the hall. To his surprise, Darcy had her arms submerged in soapy water, scrubbing at one of the pans she’d used for dinner. He frowned. “Why don’t you use the dishwasher?” he asked, when she turned the water off.

She stopped and pushed the back of her wrist, covered with a bright yellow dish glove, against her forehead, pushing back a lock of hair. “Because it’s broken,” she said shortly before she shook her head. “Not broken. Just. There’s something stuck in the latch and it doesn’t close all the way and I haven’t had time to un-jam it.” She looked over her shoulder finally and offered him a quick smile before she nodded back to the sink. “This’ll just take another minute. Go sit. Relax.”

Her words were sweet and her smile didn’t look forced, but there was something about the way they worked together that made her suggestion to sit and relax sound more like, _Get the fuck away from me._

Steve nodded and did as she asked without another word, telling himself that he’d get up early tomorrow and fix the dishwasher while she was still asleep. He sat on the couch—the couch he’d missed so much he’d dreamed about it—and tried to relax. It wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be. He stretched his legs out and tried to rest his head on the back of the couch. He’d just decided to reach for the remote when he heard it.

Glass breaking. The water shutting off. A quick, hissed, “God fucking damnit.”

He got to his feet and hovered in the doorway of the kitchen. “What happened?”

“It’s nothing,” Darcy said quickly. Too quickly. But not too quick for him to hear the wobble in her voice. Or the way she sniffed. “I just broke a—” her hands fell to the counter as he approached her slowly.

“Darcy—”

Her head dropped when he took a step closer, able to see the way her face crumpled the second before her shoulders started to shake. He went to touch her shoulder and stopped, his heart snapping in half when she tensed and didn’t immediately turn and let him put his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” she choked, bringing her hand up to cover her face. The other was still gripping the counter, a trickle of blood from where she’d cut herself on the glass swirled a diluted pink whirl against the white sink. “I’m sorry, I just want to be happy that you’re home but I’m—”

“Darcy,” he tried again, softer this time, grateful when she let him take hold of her shoulders and turn her from the sink. Her face was a red, blotchy mess. Tears streaked unapologetically over her cheeks.

“I’m so fucking mad at you, Steve,” she said, sniffling hard as her hands gripped fistfuls of his shirt. “I thought you were dead. I thought—” her chest started to rise and fall more quickly. “I thought you left me. And I know it wasn’t your fault—” another sob cut her off as she shook her head. “I just want to be happy that you’re home but I can’t just—”

He leaned in and kissed her forehead, a rush of emotion stung at the back of his throat. “I know,” he said softly.

“No,” she shook her head fiercely. “No, you don’t know. I know you didn’t mean to be gone for so long,” she said, looking up at him. “But you don’t know how scared I was. Or how hard it was to lie to everyone we know for weeks and weeks. I didn’t know what I was going to tell your boss. Or Tangie and Darren. Or Samantha?” His shirt twisted tighter in her grip as her eyes welled again. “She asked me _every day_ where you were. When you were coming home. And I just kept lying. I was all she had and I just—” she hiccoughed roughly. “I just lied because I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say. I’ve—I’ve been lying so much. I didn’t…I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to stop and I—” She surprised him by wrapping her arms tightly around him, burying her face in his chest. “I missed you so much.”

He swallowed hard and dropped his chin to kiss to top of her head. “I know ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t cut it,” he said, his voice tight with what he was trying to swallow back. “I don’t know how I can make it up to you but—”

“Just don’t—” she shook her head against him, blotting her tears on his shirt before she looked up. “Don’t make us promises you can’t keep.”

As much as he wanted to tell her he’d never leave again, never chase after the whisper of a chance of getting Bucky back, Steve knew that was a lie. And he knew that Darcy knew it too. He took her face gently in his hands, letting his thumbs trail over the soft skin he’d longed for. “Okay,” he said with a small nod. “I can’t promise you that this was the last time,” he admitted. It felt like defeat. A failure. A wound he’d had the chance to close, to heal, and hadn’t been able to. “But I can promise that no matter what,” he swallowed hard against the sting in his nose and eyes. He didn’t want to think about that cell. About the beatings and the waterboarding and the nagging certainty that he would have died there if Bucky hadn’t saved him. “No matter how hopeless things get. I will always do everything I can to make sure I come home to you.”

She reached up to cover his hands with her own and closed her eyes. It was her turn to nod slowly before she turned and pressed a soft kiss to the heel of his right hand. “Now that I can believe.”

When she kissed him again, there was none of the frantic, panicked disbelief he’d felt earlier. There was nothing but her love for him, the strength and steadiness she brought to his life, and the comfort he always felt when she was close. Steve gathered her in his arms and held her tightly, relieved that he still could. That she still let him. That he’d been allowed to keep one promise and come home.

_-fin-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you guys. Hope you liked this little conclusion.

**Author's Note:**

> *keeses*
> 
> Come play with me on tumblr: @idontgettechnology and join me at ishipitpod.com for weekly podcast on fandom and fanfic by yours truly.


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